Last week, over a dozen fishermen and Brett Tolley (NAMA's organizer) and I attended the Northeast Fisheries Management Council meeting in Mystic, CT. While there, we urged Council members to establish measures to protect inshore fishing grounds, particularly in the western Gulf of Maine, from excessive fishing pressure.

The Gulf of Maine

A quick overview of why this is necessary: In 2010, the council established groundfish "sectors:" groups of fishermen governed by an overall catch cap or limit, that allows annual trading of fishing quota. When they created this new management system, the council also eliminated inshore fishing protections that were part of the old system.

The new regulations and lack of inshore protections resulted in a perfect storm of heavy fishing pressure concentrated in a very small area, followed by a stock collapse and numerous nearshore fishermen who, with nowhere left to fish, were put out of work.

Many community based fishermen have nowhere left to fish.

Several of those fishermen, representing three different sectors, attended last week's meeting and asked that some of the old rules be reinstated and superimposed onto our existing regulations.

Ed Smith, a Gloucester fisherman, told council members that "pulse fishing" or heavy fishing on discrete aggregations (often fish that are feeding or spawning) is destructive, and that when, where, and how fishing happens matters as much as - if not more than - how many fish are taken out of the sea.

From my perspective, when fishermen tell managers that we need more protections for the fish, rather than less, the managers need to take these comments seriously, and act accordingly.

Last week, this only partially happened. The council voted to assign a committee to devise inshore area protections. That was a win. But the council also explicitly forbid the re-establishment of trip limits, the precise management measure that fishermen were asking for. The additional motion that the council passed will enable much greater transparency in the quota leasing market, a currently opaque series of transactions that often hides the true extent of fleet consolidation today. So the final result was generally positive, but not exactly what the fishermen were asking for.

Where does this leave us? Well first, that 12 fishermen all spoke in favor of ecological protections that will also benefit future fishermen: this was a tremendous feat. It showed council members how much fishermen care about this issue, and flexed some political muscle that some fishermen didn't realize they collectively had.

In fleets and fish, diversity is a good thing.

Last week's votes on the fleet diversity amendment were not the final votes. Ultimately, those votes expanded the scope of the amendment by requiring that inshore area protections be included in the mix. Now, we need to use our policy creativity and keep up the pressure on the council to enact workable solutions.

Monday, April 7, 2014

This post comes to us from Niaz Dorry, NAMA's coordinating director.No…. my long standing crush on Bobby Flay and
Anthony Bourdain has nothing to do with why we started holding Seafood Throwdowns, now in their
sixth season! Sure, I’ll turn into a pile of goo if Bourdain showed up at one
of these events. But really, this is all about marine conservation.

Truth be told: I hate tabling!

For nearly 30 years working on social,
economic and environmental justice issues I’ve done my share of tabling,
knocking on doors and any other activity that gave people the choice of listening to what we had to say. So in 2008, when I took the helm at the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, I knew we had to get the message out about the corporate takeover of the ocean, privatization of fishing rights and the ocean commons, the consolidation happening within the fishing industry leading to “too big to fail” operations that will come back to bite us, and other impacts on marine fisheries and ocean’s health not discussed by the mainstream marine conservation conversations.

That had to change, and we needed a strategy for reaching a broader population than who had been paying attention to date. We had to be untraditional to get the attention of the most number of people.

A Throwback Throwdown! (2008)

My friend Jessica Hayes and I began to
brainstorm ways to inject fisheries issues into our local farmers market and in food systems conversations in general where we could not only talk about the need to shift the seafood market, but also the local, regional, national, and international policies - such as Catch Shares - that are leading to major consolidation of the fishing industry. But the idea of tabling about it actually churned my stomach. I felt strongly that we needed to create something that compelled people to pay attention, not
give them a choice.

The 2013 Cape Ann Farmers Market Throwdown

Lucky for our work, Jessica’s role as the
manager of Cape Ann Farmers Markethere
in Gloucester, MA gave us a venue to test our theories. Jessica’s
pedigree as an activist is pretty impressive. She's worked with the Genetic Engineering Action Network, Farm Aid and a number of other organizations concerned about the social, economic and
ecological implications of industrial food production and genetically modified
foods.

Needless to say, she was just as excited about creating a dynamic,
interactive activity that would pull people into our work.

Getting ready to Throwdown at a Boston Winter Market, 2013

Thus began a series of weekly, casual,
informal conversations around my kitchen table about exactly what we could or
should do. The conversation benefited from the experiences and expertise of
variety of friends including Hallie Baker of Turtle Alley Chocolates (best
chocolates in the world, by the way); local foodie
and graphic designer Margot Lord; long time fisheries activist and one-time
seafood purveyor and owner of Pigeon Cove Seafood (now owned by Whole Foods)
Steve Parkes; local restaurateur, local economy advocate and time banker Mark McDonough; musician and artist Shep Abbot; Jessica of course, and others.

Part of the original "kitchen table" crew! From left Jessica Hayes, Margot Lord, Steve Parkes.

From these kitchen table conversations was
born the idea of Seafood Throwdowns. What better way to figure out strategies
for integrating seafood into the food system than to sit around, eat great
food and talk about food with creative people who care about our food? We
figured if it worked for us, it’d work for the general public we wanted to
reach.

Yes, we stole concepts from Bobby Flay’s
Throwdowns and the Food Network’s Iron Chef series. And we give them credit
every step of the way. The hybrid event has proven to be one that draws
thousands of people each year. The aromas, action, energy and conversations
that come with a Seafood Throwdown draw people in. They come to watch
a cooking show and end up learning about the threats to our ocean and
fisheries, and find real tangible ways to do something about them.

A hotter-than-heck Throwdown in Roxbury, July 2013

Another benefit of organizing Seafood Throwdowns has been the
lasting relationships between our community partners and us. Together, we've
not only put on a great, educational event, we've created change along the
way.

There have been other benefits: The City of Boston’s antiquated ordinance that prohibited the sale of
seafood on farmers markets was rewritten once the city’s health inspectors worked with us on a Seafood Throwdown at
the first ever Boston Local Food Festival.

Throwing down at the 2013 Boston Local Food Festival

The county commissioner who
adamantly opposed sale of seafood in public settings such as farmers market in
the Outer Banks of North Carolina came to me after our first Seafood Throwdown
in Hatteras, NC to say how he’s come around. These are just two examples of how behavior has changed and how as a result, more people have access to fresh local seafood because of these events.

Today what started out around my kitchen table has become a
popular and effective event we hold throughout the region and beyond.

Seafood Throwdowns have been held at food festivals, farmers markets and even
hospitals in Burlington, Vermont; Boston, Gloucester, Rockport, Marshfield, Leominster,
Chatham, Hyannis, Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford, Massachusetts; Unity,
Maine; Rye and Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Providence, Rhode Island; Brooklyn
and Manhattan, New York; Halifax, NS, St. Paul, MN, Anchorage, AK, Hatteras,
NC. There was even a pseudo-Throwdown in Cornwall, UK!